Monday, July 25, 2011

Google - AdWords - OMG

For new people on my blog:

I am a diehard fan of Google and ex-googler (ex Google employee). Please note the view/opinion in this post is completely mine and Google or its subsidiaries are not responsible for any information published here. (Typical disclaimer)

Google is now making $3 billion a month in advertising — the majority of which comes from little text ads next to search results.




You might wonder how that’s possible, and who’s spending that much money on search ads.
The answer, according to Larry Kim — the founder of a company that sells software to analyze text ad campaigns — is in industries where a customer is worth a lot of money over the long-term.

Wordstream, Kim’s company, analyzed search terms that advertisers pay the most to have their ads show up next to, and grouped the top 10,000 by industry, using its own software. They multiplied the so-called cost-per-click — what advertisers pay Google for each time someone clicks on their ads — times the number of times people search on that word. They then divided that pie up by keywords that fit different industries.

The top industry? Insurance, where companies eager to outbid their rivals for new customers pay Google more than $54 for a click. Together they make up 24 percent of Google’s revenues from search advertising, according to Wordstream’s calculations. Companies in the business of issuing loans come second, with CPC rates of more than $44 — providing nearly 13 percent of Google’s revenues.

“There are lots of lawyers finding clients,” Kim said. “Even if they have to pay for 50 to 100 clicks to get a client, they can get that back in a court case that last for years, all the while billing $500 an hour. The same thing happens with CRM software, where companies pay a high month fee.”